Every year our staff shows an outstanding commitment to sharing their gifts with our students. Through their chosen profession, they help our most precious responsibility – our children – prepare for their future goals and aspirations. They are always there to answer the call to provide exceptional faith-filled learning and they do it with extraordinary dedication and talent.
Awards for Excellence
Our People
Improving Quality of Work Life
New Teacher Induction Program
Professional Development
Awards for Excellence
For the first time this year, the Premier of Ontario announced the Premier’s Teaching Awards for Excellence, aimed at recognizing outstanding teachers, principals and education support staff across Ontario. There were ten different award categories, which honour the positive impact teachers and other staff have on students, as well as outstanding teaching practices.
Kelly Stapleton-Korber, from St.Nicholas School in Barrie, was one of two recipients from across the province of the highest honour – the Premier’s Teacher of the Year Award. Five other teachers in our Board – Peter Balcom from St. Ann’s School in Penetanguishene, Tom Vincer and Anne Marie Fairley from Our Lady of Grace School in Angus, Bernadette Navaro from St. Francis of Assisi School in Innisfil, and Colleen Magennis from St. Monica’s School in Barrie – were also nominated for the awards.
In addition,Paul Beltrano from St. Michael the Archangel school in Barrie was the recipient of the Pupil’s Choice Teacher of the Year award. The award,which is sponsored by Scholars Choice, was given out during National Education Week.
Our Board was also recognized by Simcoe Community Services for providing inclusive learning environments for students with special needs. The Inclusion Excellence Awards were provided to Lora Grande, Special Education Resource Teacher, Tracey Lee White,Special Education Resource Teacher, Denise Harkins, Education Assistant,and Angie Travers, Education Assistant.
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Our People
Our Human Resources (HR) Department supports one of our most vital resources – our staff. They provide services to approximately 4,000 permanent, temporary and casual individuals.
Last year, they were busy recruiting for a wide range of positions including teachers, educational assistants, custodians, school secretaries, maintenance staff and others, all of whom are part of our educational team that supports student learning.
Other initiatives included the ongoing recruitment of teachers for our classrooms, which resulted in an ever increasing number of qualified, Catholic teachers providing effective learning to our students.
High quality professional development programs were provided to our school support staff including Educational Assistants, School Secretaries and Custodians. We also offered new teacher orientation programs. In addition, we celebrate our staff by recognizing our dedicated and loyal employees who either retired or provided numerous years of service during our annual Employee Recognition and Retirement Celebration.
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Improving Quality of Work Life
Because the quality of our staffs’ work life is important to us, we engaged in an extensive review of the Board’s Workers’ Safety Insurance Board’s (WSIB) program. This review resulted in several recommendations for improvements to support injured workers and enhance our return to work programs. We will continue to find innovative ways to improve our work environment.
New Teacher Induction Program
New teachers bring such wonderful energy to the classroom and inspire students’ learning. While being a new teacher is very exciting,embarking on this career also has many challenges. That is why the New Teacher Induction Program (NTIP) is so important, as we help our teachers grow and develop in their chosen profession. Through NTIP, we formally welcome new Catholic teachers into our community and meet some of their unique needs. Our NTIP provides for a celebration of accomplishments and recognition of growth.
As a Catholic Board, an important part of NTIP is to ensure that new teachers are made to feel a part of their faith community. In addition to getting specific professional development on various topics ranging from classroom management, planning, assessment, literacy and numeracy, and working with parents, they also get full support with faith formation and our religion/family life program. Because we recognize the importance of learning beyond focused professional development sessions, a mentoring program – with peer support – was also established for NTIP teachers.
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Professional Development
Throughout 2006 – 2007 the Programme and Services Department delivered an exceptional professional development plan for teachers and support staff. All of the in-service sessions, which included workshops,meetings and summer institutes, incorporated the theme for Catholic Education Week And God saw that it was Good. All of the sessions are structured to meet the unique needs of our students and the individual needs of our staff.
Over the summer months, teachers participated in professional development courses at both the elementary and secondary levels, to gain new skills and enhance student learning. Workshops focused on literacy, numeracy, inclusion, computers integrated in the classroom and French as a Second Language. There were also well attended Additional Qualification Religion courses and a technology workshop.
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